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The American League Rookie of the Year award may have gone to Neftali Feliz last season, and deservedly so, but the two sophomores I’m looking most forward to following this season are Wade Davis and Brian Matusz.

Each pitcher resides in the middle of our AL starting pitching rankings, and each also have the unfortunate assignment of playing in the American League East this season. Neither the Rays nor the Orioles will depend on the performances of these starters to succeed – the Rays are too good and the Orioles have too many other problems – but both will get ample opportunity to add on to their successful rookie campaigns.

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Directly related to this comment from Mike Podhorzer and his piece on the Cheapest Pitching Staff Possible, I often use a term to describe the process by which a manager reacts, in my estimation, incorrectly to the developments of his or her respective snake draft.  As Mike pointed out, “zigging” when your fellow managers are “zagging” may allow you a degree of competitive advantage, and failure to do so is what I call ‘chasing the draft’, and while it’s hard to avoid sometimes, it frequently requires that you wad up your draft strategy and toss it in the rubbish bin.

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When attempting to identify an undervalued fantasy asset, some owners will look at first and second half splits. If a specific player really excelled in the second half of the season, that player is often viewed as a player on the rise. Edwin Jackson and Brian Matusz are two players that fall into that category this season. Despite their strong finishes, both players still enter 2011 with question marks. In the RotoGraphs Player Rankings, Jackson and Matusz ranked right next to each other in the Red Hot Chili Peppers tier (the fourth tier). While I could sit here and debate Mike Podhorzer’s taste in music, it would probably be more helpful to you, the reader, if I took a look at how Jackson and Matusz will perform this season, and whether they will build on their strong second halves.
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Reading the daily tea leaves surrounding the possible move of Neftali Feliz from closer to starter can get a little confusing. First, he’s their closer until something changes and he wants to be the closer. Now, he wants to be a starter and his GM thinks he would be more valuable in that role. Last, a national writer feels it would be an upset if he starts. What a way to mess up rankings.

The good news for those that drafted Feliz is that he’ll probably be valuable in fantasy baseball either way. He’s so excellent that he can survive the average 0.7 MPH drop that occurs during the switch according to Jeremy Greenhouse’s work. If his 96 MPH gas turns into 95 MPH gas, it’s still gas. According to Tom Tango’s work, he’ll also lose about 17% of his K/PA and his BABIP and HR/FB will increase by about 17%.

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It’s no secret that I’m a big American League East fan. I root for the Rays, and generally enjoy being in competition with the Red Sox, Yankees, Jays, and Orioles. It’s just a better brand of baseball. With some hitter friendly ballparks and many of the best offenses in the game under one divisional umbrella it can prove a pretty tough for task for any pitcher. The two names I’m going to look at today have escaped the AL Beast and hopefully can find more fantasy value in the senior circuit.

We’ll start with someone who will always hold a special place in my baseball heart, Matt Garza. The special place Garza holds is due to his brilliance in Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS, but that’s neither here nor there. He was shipped to the Cubs this off season for a bundle of prospects. While Garza has put together back to back seasons with 200+IP and a sub 4.00 ERA, looks can be deceiving. His FIP in those seasons were 4.17 and 4.42, and that’s with a fantastic Tampa Bay defense backing him up. Another benefit Garza received while with the Rays was Tropicana Field itself. It’s not generally thought of as a great pitcher’s park – even though most seasons it is – but the Trop does do a good job of keeping the ball in the field of play.

Garza has a tendency to give up the long ball away from the Trop as evidenced by his road HR/FB ratios of 12.3% and 11.3%, in contrast to 8.5% at home, over the past two seasons. His FB% has also increased every season since 2007. None of that information is good for a pitcher who will call Wrigley Field home this year. Getting away from the AL East automatically breathes life into Garza’s season, but consider his peripherals come draft day.

A return trip to the Bronx was likely the worst thing that could have happened to Javier Vazquez’s fantasy life. After a fantastic 2009 season for Atlanta in which he posted the highest K/9 and lowest FIP of his career, Vazquez was, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, completely and utterly useless for the Yankees in 2010. His K/9 fell to a 10 year worst of 6.92, his ERA ballooned to 5.32 and BB/9 was an unsightly 3.72. The culprit looks to be a big loss in velocity. Usually sitting at around 90-91 mph, Javy dipped into the 88 mph range and even dipped below that a bit before finishing at a 88.7 mph average. He’s always been more of a fly ball pitcher, and to succeed in doing that you have to miss bats. You’re not going to miss anything at 88 mph.

As Dave Cameron noted, when pitchers experience a decrease in their fastball velocity like Vazquez’s they do not get it back. Vazquez is no longer a young man; the miles he’s put on his arm over his excellent career look to be catching up to him. He’s worth a late, late round gamble in most leagues, as moving from Yankee Stadium to Sun Life Stadium will help any pitcher, but a return trip to the NL may not be enough to get Vazquez back on the right track.

There’s a lot of pressure that comes with being a top prospect. For every prospect that makes an immediate impact on his team, there are a number of others that struggle for years before finally fulfilling their projections. Owners that remain patient with players in the latter group can pick up premium talent in the last rounds of a draft. Jose Tabata and Dexter Fowler are two players that fit that category this season. While both have shown some ability in the majors, both have a legitimate chance to establish themselves as solid fantasy options this season. What should owners expect from these potential breakout players?
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RotoGraphs Chat

You’ve probably gotten a handle on how things are going here. We RotoGraph writers got together around Carson’s virtual, incredibly round table, and ranked the players. Then we smashed them together and today I’ll add the tiers. These rankings assume regular settings (but plan on seeing some articles about players that step forward in alternate settings). Once the season starts, I’ll be your NL OF correspondent, continually updating the rankings and discussing player news at the position.

RotoGraphs will also provide a list of mixed-league OF ranks. Because of the way things are set up here, we won’t be able to offer strong coverage at the position without splitting them into leagues. But we can give you a draft-prep sheet for mixed-league outfielders and will as soon as we can. And one last thing – click on the tags in the bottom right navbar and you can easily skip to the position you’d like to read about.

Caddyshack
Ryan Braun
Carlos Gonzalez
Matt Holliday

Though this tier is not without questions, the questions are a lot more muted than the rest of the position. Braun’s power will hopefully regress to career levels, and even if Gonzalez is unhappy about his regression in batted-ball luck, he should be a valuable player. Holliday is the metronome, but the lineup around him is worse than you might expect, and he owns less power than you might think. Don’t sell them short, though, they’re tremendous slouches/outfielders.

Ghostbusters
Matt Kemp
Andrew McCutchen
Jayson Werth
Justin Upton
Jason Heyward
Hunter Pence

If you gotta call someone, you might as well call these guys. Every member of this tier will give you something in all five categories – and yet they may give a little something back somewhere else. Kemp’s Ks mean a lower batting average, McCutchen’s power is an open question, Werth is leaving a nice home park and has always struck out a lot, Heyward needs to stay healthy and show the power we know is coming, and Pence has to avoid the bad streak that comes almost every year.

This is Spinal Tap
Andre Ethier
Jay Bruce
Shane Victorino
Mike Stanton
Drew Stubbs
Chris Young
Corey Hart
Colby Rasmus
Martin Prado

This tier is mostly in transit. Some are on their way up, some on their way down, and all feature questions more prominently than the last group. For the most part, you won’t get a nice batting average here, and if you start falling behind in that category, you may find yourself skipping the group. That would be too bad, because someone here will dial it to eleven this year.

The 40-Year Old Virgin
Angel Pagan
Jason Bay
Aubrey Huff
Michael Bourn
Carlos Lee
Jose Tabata
Dexter Fowler
Chris Coghlan

Same as the last verse, just a little bit worse. All the veterans here are closer to extinction, and all the young guys have lower ceilings. These guys are flawed, but if they fall far enough, they’ll provide your team with value. And even limited upside is still upside – just don’t put them on a pedestal.

Step Brothers
Carlos Beltran
Lance Berkman
Marlon Byrd
Seth Smith
Will Venable
Alfonso Soriano
Logan Morrison
Nyjer Morgan
Andres Torres
Ryan Ludwick
Raul Ibanez
Tyler Colvin

This is not the time for a Will Ferrell referendum, but even his biggest fans would admit that he has better movies. Still, the movie was good for some great lines, and most of these guys will be able to hit offer some good lines for a stretch or two. Over the course of the year, you will start to see their flaws, but a few high notes is enough at their prices.

Coneheads
Cody Ross
Garrett Jones
Nate McLouth
Domonic Brown
Carlos Gomez
Jonny Gomes
Ben Francisco
Cameron Maybin
Mark DeRosa
Mike Morse
Roger Bernadina
Ryan Spilborghs
Chris Dickerson
Kosuke Fukudome
Ryan Sweeney
Brad Hawpe
Kyle Blanks

A fundamentally flawed movie and tier, you’ll still get a chuckle or two. One or two of these guys may even rise above his peers and make great movies, I mean become a fantasy regular at his position. But the odds are not in their favor this year.

In his first full season in the majors, Neftali Feliz absolutely lived up to the hype. After taking over the closer role, Feliz used his high-velocity fastball and knee-buckling breaking ball to baffle hitters while also breaking the rookie saves record. Despite that success, there is still some debate over whether Feliz would be better utilized in the rotation. The Texas Rangers seem more than willing to give Feliz a shot at starting again, allowing him to stretch his arm out this Spring. If Feliz can crack the rotation, however, fantasy owners will be salivating over whatever pitcher is announced as the new closer. Let’s take a look at some of the candidates.
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